What does it take for course content to create a shift in the students who are learning that material?

The faculty team at Creating the Future is at that “developing content” point in building our new Catalytic Listening course. To guide that effort, we are using Catalytic Strategy to ask two core questions:
1) What do we want to be different for our students, when the class is over?
2) For the class to make that difference, what do the students need to know, believe, value, be able to do? What are their pre-conditions for success, that we want the class to create – through content, format, and anything else it takes?

Using Catalytic Strategy to Develop Course Content
Catalytic Strategy creates a critical path of cause-and-effect conditions to connect today’s reality to high-potential outcomes that might otherwise seem unattainabe. That path of causality is rich with interconnected pre-conditions that together create a domino effect, causing success to feel like it is just naturally emerging, domino falling upon domino, because that’s what happens when all the conditions for success are in place.

That’s why one of the two core tenets of Catalytic Thinking states that “Our ability to create amazing results lies in our ability to create favorable cause-and-effect conditions towards those results.” Create the conditions, and the result is likely to emerge without having to be forced.

As we consider that rich field of interwoven conditions and pre-conditions for success, we are able to readily determine actions that will create circumstances where success feels inevitable.

In developing a class, the “actions” we will take are to teach. The “teaching tools” we have at our disposal are content and format – what we’ll teach, and how we’ll teach it.

If we teach content in ways that create the conditions we have identified as leading to successful outcomes, we are creating an environment in which our students are most likely to create the difference we hoped the course would achieve.

When we first began developing our classes, we called those “pre-conditions for success” Learning Objectives. What we have found, though, is that when we called them Learning Objectives, that language led us to focus on those objectives rather than the ultimate “why” of the course – why it was important to achieve those objectives.

When instead we called those objectives what they really are – preconditions for clearly defined success – it was easier to remember to ask the “So what?” question. Why is it important that we learn these things? Ah yes, so that we can accomplish something amazing.

As an example, consider a high school calculus class. We might define the students’ ultimate success as, “Fluent in calculus to the point where they can use it in various scientific applications.”

Pre-conditions for the the students’ success in learning calculus might include

• they must understand algebra and be able to apply it
• they must understand geometry and trigonometry, and be able to apply both
• they must feel confident and believe in their ability to “do math” at all
• and a whole lot more

Looking at that first pre-condition for success, what must they have in place if they are to understand algebra? More pre-conditions…

• they must understand the difference between a variable and a constant
• they must understand what the symbols mean
• they must see the practical application of algebra – how it applies in real life
• and a whole lot more

Two things become obvious from this example:

1) If the students achieve all those pre-conditions for success, they are likely to fully understand algebra, putting them on the path to understanding calculus

2) Because our objective is to have the students learn all that stuff, those conditions for their success in the class are the learning objectives for the class – the things we instructors want them to understand and believe and know how to do by the time they leave the class. By calling them pre-conditions for success instead of learning objectives, however, we have been explicit not just about what we want them to learn (the learning objectives) but WHY those learning objectives matter – the so what? and the why does this matter?

Once we have defined those pre-conditions for students to successfully incorporate their new learning into their lives, we can easily identify the content that will help them create those conditions. We can also identify what format might be best for that learning (Group work? Individual homework? Discussion?) We can also identify what else they might need (Normalizing when they’re lost? Additional support when a subject is difficult for them to grasp?)

The power lies not in the words we use to identify these steps (learning objectives vs pre-conditions for success). The power lies in our realizing that “learning objectives” are not ends unto themselves, but means to the ultimate end result we really want our students to be able to accomplish. Those objectives are steps along the path of causality.

And so whether we call them objectives or conditions, they are in fact pre-conditions for success – steps along the critical path of causality between where those students are today and where they hope to be once the course is over.

Photo credit: NYTimes archive via Wikimedia Commons

Please join moderator and Creating the Future fellow Kim Tso  as she chats with:

• Holly Minch of the Lightbox Collaborative
• Diane Leonard of DH Leonard Consulting & Grant Writing Services
• May Miller-Dawkins of Corelab
• Douglas Knight of Connect The Dots Movement

Here’s a PDF that profiles their forms of Consultant Collaborations.

We will spend 45 minutes on the panel discussion and then open up the discussion to answer your Twitter questions. Send any questions you want answered during the live panel by using the hashtag #NPCons or send them directly to @KimberlyTso.  See you there!

LISTEN TO THE MEETING HERE

Download audio file (Collaborate%20with%20Other%20Consultants%20—%20Panel%20Discussion.mp3)

or Download the MP3
(To download to your hard drive, right-click {or click and hold on a Mac} on the link above and select “Save Target As”.. or “Save Link as”… depending on your browser)

Twitter stream from the Collaborate With Other Consultants Google Hangout

(Please scroll to the bottom to begin)

As consultants, we are driven to bring out the best in our clients. But what does it take to bring out the best in ourselves?

Often consultants confess that they really don’t know. They’re so busy making everything ok for everyone else that they have never really asked themselves the question.

So we asked it for you! We asked a group of seasoned consultants who work primarily in the community benefit sector, “What would you advise new consultants, for creating conditions that ensure they are at their best?”

Here’s what they told us:

Alison Rapping
• Seek out clients who cherish your partnership; contracts that are project, not hourly based; mutually supportive values and goals; opportunities to be creative.
• Set a list of questions you ask every client — based on values, culture, shared working styles, communications, — any topic that is important to you; ask every client the questions. Really listen to the answers, they also can be the “deal-makers/deal-breakers” for you. Have clarity about what your “deal-makers/deal-breakers” are.

Rebecca Hurd
• Spend time with yourself getting really clear on your “why,” what you are aiming for, and the favorable conditions that bring out your best. It’s your sweet spot, and just as you create the spaces to bring out the best in others, do the same for you.
• Release yourself from feeling like you must have all the answers, or know everything about X, or come in to “fix” something as the “expert.”
• Value the power of reflection and get off the productivity treadmill. BE before you DO, with yourself and with the community members you reach out to, or those who contact you.

Marc Pitman
Avoid attempting to “get” clients by adding a list of back breaking “benefits” to working with you. Listen instead to what clients value – whether or not they access the benefits. Your work should benefit clients without breaking you.

Tammy Zonker
Employ the “velvet rope policy” – be selective when accepting clients. Engage with those where your expert strengths are of the utmost value towards strengthening their organization. When you engage for *just* the money, you earn e.v.e.r.y. penny! Ugh!

Kimberly Diggs Lauth
• When I started I made a commitment (and made sure my family understood it) that I would eat ramen soup for a month before taking on a client I didn’t feel great about. I haven’t had too – but I love having the understanding.
• I never work by the hour – only by project, payable in advance each month.
• All of my agreements have a 30 day clause – either party can end the agreement for any reason by giving 30 days notice. Again, it has never been used – but it is nice to know it is there. – for me and for the client.
• I always over deliver but am clear when there is real project creep – and have gotten comfortable letting clients know when we need to revisit the agreement because the scope of work has changed.
• Finally – because as a consultant you have some expert cache you need to guard against taking yourself too seriously. Never underestimate the appeal of authenticity. 

Susan Detwiler
Understand why you’re doing this. Remember that if what you seek is flexibility, then you should allow yourself that flexibility. It’s easy to get caught up in having to work all the time. But if your client work is weekends and evenings, then taking your spouse to the movies at 4pm is perfectly all right. Give yourself that permission.

Joyce Lee-Ibarra
• Learn how to judge when the fit with a client is right. Not just on paper, but at a gut-level: Do you have trust and respect for the people you’ll be working with? Do your values align? Are your work styles compatible? How do they treat their staff?
• Avoid “auto-pilot” work. Look for opportunities to do work that grows your knowledge, skills, or relationships.
• Carve out time to think and reflect about the work you do, and how you see yourself contributing to your community. This is vitally important to keeping you grounded, so don’t skimp here, though you might be tempted!
• Take time for self-care. Actually block out calendar time, (e.g., every other Friday) to take in a movie, go for a hike, read that cheesy romance novel–whatever recharges your batteries.
• Surround yourself with the company of sharp, passionate people that you feel comfortable reaching out to–we all need a support network. And ask that first question when you feel the need for help–every subsequent question after that will be easier.

Gayle Valeriote
People have a tendency to rise to the level of our expectations of them, so what might it make possible if you give your clients the gift of seeing them as if they were at their peak level of performance? Love them, nurture the best in them, and remember that at the end of it all, the most important thing is relationship.

What else would you add to this list? As a consultant to groups and individuals who are focused on creating a better world, how do you bring out the best in YOU?

Photo / Art: Mural on a window in downtown Toronto 

A year ago this month, Lisa Humenik, Rebecca Hurd and Justin Pollock were exploring together – along with 5 of their soon-to-be fellows – in Creating the Future’s Consultant Immersion program.

On Tuesday, October 14th at 2:30pm ET, they will be together again for the first time in a year, talking about the difference in their work since applying what they learned in the immersion course. You can count on this group to speak candidly about what they had expected before the class, and what they experienced in those 5 intense and inspiring days.

As always, you are invited to be part of this conversation, asking questions or just sharing your own aha’s. Just watch the hangout here, and tweet to the hashtag #CTFuture.

The hour long conversation will be moderated by co-founder of StartSomeGood.com, Alex Budak (who also happens to be a Creating the Future board member!)

Please join in on our conversation by tweeting to the hashtag #CTFuture. We’d love to hear from you and answer any questions you may have about Creating the Future’s Immersion Program.

LISTEN TO THE MEETING HERE

Download audio file (1%20Year%20of%20Consulting%20to%20Create%20the%20Future.mp3)

or Download the MP3
(To download to your hard drive, right-click {or click and hold on a Mac} on the link above and select “Save Target As”.. or “Save Link as”… depending on your browser)

Participant Bios

Lisa Humenik
Lisa Humenik has more than 22 years of experience in the field of nonprofit administration and volunteer program management. She recently relocated from Tucson, Arizona to Madison, Wisconsin and is currently serving as President of the Sigma Kappa National Housing Corporation, a 501(c)(7) organization that engages 200+ volunteers across the country managing campus housing and investments for chapters on 35 campuses across the U.S. She has served as President & CEO of Volunteer Southern Arizona, Executive Director of the Amphitheater Public Schools Foundation, and Director of a school-based mentoring program serving 22 districts in eastern Iowa. Lisa has a Master’s degree in Public Administration with a concentration in nonprofit leadership and is a faculty associate at the Arizona State University Lodestar Center for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Innovation. She has served on numerous nonprofit boards and consults with nonprofit organizations in the areas of strategic and community impact planning, community engagement, program and resource development, and volunteer program administration.

Rebecca Hurd
Rebecca Hurd is a change catalyst, community builder and storyteller. Prior to launching Hurd Consulting in 2010, Rebecca spent a blended and varied 15 years working in fundraising, communication, and community engagement roles with community benefit organizations, and in sales, marketing and communication functions with Fortune 100 technology companies. She creates the space for community benefit organizations and communities to aim for what is possible together. Five Cs are hardwired in Rebecca: Compassion, curiosity, creativity, communication and community. Rebecca is co-creator of the AVIC (Adams, Valley & Idaho Counties) Collaborative, a group of community members who value relationships, and believe it is their responsibility and joy to create a healthy and thriving community. She is the 2014 National Philanthropy Day AFP Idaho Development Executive of the Year. In 2006, the call of the great outdoors became a roar. A one-way ticket from Philadelphia ultimately landed her in the small and beautiful mountain community of McCall, Idaho. When not working, you will find Rebecca out on the trails running, skiing, and exploring with her family.

Justin Pollock
Justin Pollock is founder of Orgforward, a consultancy working with community benefit agents and capacity builders to develop leadership and strategies that create communities where equity, dignity, and an healthy environment exist for everyone. His focus is on strengthening the connection between vision and the leadership, programming, finance, and infrastructure needed to make change happen and on supporting organizational leaders with what they need to effectively govern and operate their organizations. With more than 20 years of experience in the education and community benefit fields, Justin has trained and presented to board, staff, and volunteers from agencies ranging from small start-ups to large well-established organizations on topics of governance, financial management, planning, supervision, leadership development, and organizational sustainability.

Alex Budak
Alex Budak, originally from San Francisco and now based in Stockholm, Sweden currently works at Reach for Change where he runs an incubator for 12 of Sweden’s top social entrepreneurs, helping them scale their organizations and their impact. Before joining Reach for Change in late 2013, he co-founded, co-managed and now advises the crowd funding site StartSomeGood.com, which has supported the launch of over 300 new social ventures. An internationally-recognized social entrepreneur, he’s spoken to groups about social entrepreneurship around the world and has written on social innovation for The Guardian and US News. Prior to StartSomeGood, he hosted a podcast for Ashoka and conducted research on the intersection of new media and politics.

Last week, in Creating the Future’s Facebook group for consultants to community benefit orgs, an article from Forbes titled Are You Dealing With A Real Expert Or A Fake? 7 Ways To Tell led to an interesting discussion.

The list included this at #2: Real experts have no trouble saying: “I don’t know.”

That led to an interesting discussion – a discovery for many in the group, that we wanted to share here:

Kerri Karvetski: I have found saying “I don’t know” SOOOO liberating.

Joyce Lee-Ibarra: We had a pediatrician for our kids a while back who, when she posed a question to which they responded “I don’t know,” suggested that what they really meant was, “I don’t know…yet.” As she explained it, “I don’t know” tends to shut the brain down, it has a finality to it. But “I don’t know…yet” gives the brain room to continue working on the problem, to mull it over on the back burner. 

I love the spirit of the list, and recognize the importance of being willing to admit when you don’t have all the answers. I love the example <in a prior comment> of turning an “I don’t know” situation into a “I don’t know myself, but I can help you turn that around so that you realize you can find the answers.” It’s like problem-solving ju jitsu!

Regina Rodríguez: I think beyond any expertise in any given field, the “I don’t know, yet” practice and eventual mentality is one of the cornerstones of customer service at the large corporation where I had my first experience in professional development.  The “I don’t know” gives a much more final answer, as Joyce says, but doesn’t provide a solution, and my job was to always find a solution. I’ve carried that over to every job I’ve held since and is now an unspoken rule of life (and thank goodness for Google search on these wonderful smart phones!).

So… what has been your experience with saying either “I don’t know” or “I don’t know YET”?  And if you haven’t tried it, what might those 3 or 4 words make possible for both you and your clients?

If you’re interested in joining the FB group for consultants to community benefit orgs, we have only one criteria – that you are actively consulting or actively working to become a consultant (actively seeking clients) with a specific focus on community benefit orgs. Click here and tell us about your consulting work (or link to your web page) and we’ll link you up!

We could have just done this privately, but our session is about the fact that all Creating the Future’s meetings happen live online with the participation of anyone who wants to chime in via Twitter. So it was natural for us to craft that very session in the same way – openly online with folks tweeting their thoughts!

What you will therefore see in the meeting (link is here) is not just the video of that session, but the tweet stream as well, where Judy Hansen and Kent Schell helped us with ideas and thoughts and direction – the very things we will be talking about during the session.

What Do We Want This Session to Accomplish, and For Whom?
We recognized that likely participants in the session would be board leaders (and perhaps ED’s) and consultants. We also recognized that the session description, as it was proposed, is the most succinct description of what we hope this session will accomplish: “The highest potential of “accountability” is for boards and their meetings to be a place for a community’s aspirations and concerns to be heard and acted upon.”

Board Leaders:
• Comfort that openness is possible – despite their fears, despite their lived expereince.
• Support from an existing community that is trying this – “I’m not alone”
• Provide practical ways to move to greater potential
• Provide pratical ways to get the community involved / to turn outward

Consultants:
• Tools that help them bring clients to the next level
• Language that will help them speak with clients about this approach, at different points along the continuum of the client’s potential to embrace the approach

What conditions must our session create, to accomplish those goals?
• Help them feel this isn’t as scary as they think – and that they can feel comfortable trying it, despite their fears
• Help them feel trust that people won’t throw bombs – the commitment that “We won’t do anything rash if you don’t.”
• Help them

The following is the outline we came up with for our 90 minute session:

1) Introduce the session
First, we’ll talk about how Creating the Future chose to do this – that it was a matter of walking the talk of our values.

From there, we will walk them through what we will do in the session, to provide context for what they are about to experience. We’ll be explicit about the fact that we will talk not just about how to “do” open participatory meetings, but WHY. That this is more a way of thinking and being than a new model for governance. That we intend to model the values that guide our meetings in the way we structure the session. And that the context for the session overall is the context noted above: that the highest potential of “accountability” is for boards and their meetings to be a place for a community’s aspirations and concerns to be heard and acted upon.

Examples for the session will be Creating the Future (online) and Onward Willow (community-based org). We talked about asking folks to self-identify re: how they feel about what Creating the Future is doing (some may be skeptical, and we’d like to know that!)

2) Table Discussions: The Possibilities
What could opening the doors and allowing more participation in your board meetings make possible, and for whom?
Discussion at the tables, then come back for group “aha’s”

3) Group Discussion: Creating Conditions for Success
To help create the conditions for the people in the room, have the discussion about what it will take and what might hurt their board if they try it – create the conditions right there.

What would it take for your board to consider opening its doors? What would need to be in place? What are you concerned might hurt your board if you did this? (And then, what would need to be in place for that NOT to happen? And what could that fear make possible?)

4) Practice Session:
The presenters will choose a scenario and discuss it as if they were the board. Participants will participate as if they were in the room with an actual board. (We might ask participants to go along with the discussion, to show how it works when it’s working well. Then towards the end, we can ask for one person to be disruptive, to be able to talk about how those possible scenarios could be handled.)

We will use the internet to have people tweet, so they can experience responding in that way. That will also bring others into the learnings from the session, who weren’t in the session itself.

5) Discussion: Putting this into Practice
The take-aways from this session are about how you would build more openness and participation into your own board’s work. What had stood out for you? What will you be able to put into practice?

That leaves us with the following questions:
• Does this sound about right for a 90 minute intro session? What resonates? What falls flat?
• What handouts would you provide for this session?
• What slides would you use?

We look forward to adding your thoughts into the pot, to make this session the best it can be. (And we hope you’ll come join us at the conference in November!)

Deadline for our having slides and handouts to BoardSource is this weekend. We look forward to your help!!!

One Thursday, September 19th at 1pm PT, we’ll be meeting to craft our workshop for the BoardSource conference. The video of that session will appear at the bottom of this post at the time of the meeting. To participate, tweet to #CTFuture.

Back in April, a group of Creating the Future fellows gathered to craft a proposal to BoardSource, offering to present a workshop at their conference in November, focused on our open participatory meetings.

As part of that proposal development process, we asked for your ideas. After all, what’s the point of proposing a session about being open and participatory if we aren’t open and participatory in developing that proposal in the first place!

The good news is that BoardSource approved our “Extreme Accountability” proposal and invited us to present a 90 minute session. Which means it is now time for us to actually craft what we’ll be doing during that session!  Just as we did in crafting the proposal, it seems only logical for us to once again do that work together – with you.

And so, on Thursday, September 19th at 1pm PT / 4pm ET, we will be doing just that, right here at this blog post (video will appear at the end of the text), hopefully with your participation via the Twitter hashtag #CTFuture.

As a refresher, the proposal we submitted is here. What we promised to provide included:

• Participants will learn via case study and discussion with actual board members who work with this approach
• Participants will learn “on the job,” by putting open engagement into practice during the session, participating in a mock board meeting that invites public participation
• Participants will discuss their experience and reactions, and brainstorm steps to apply these approaches to their own boards and/or boards of consulting clients

Now it’s time to figure out what that means for nuts and bolts of the session – the format, the process, the content. The presenters will include two board members and one non-board-member who frequently participates via twitter.

So…
Whether you are planning to attend the session in LA in November, or you will not be able to be there but wish you could, please help us make that session the most effective it can be. How can we accomplish all we have set out to accomplish (per the proposal objectives here)?

• What would make this session amazing?
• What would you want to learn and explore – and in what format?
• What kind of session would best allow you to experience the power of open participatory meetings?

Be at our Session Prep meeting on the 19th and help us make this session the best it can be.  (And if you can’t be at the meeting on the 19th – or if you have some thoughts right now and you don’t want to lose them – please share in the comments right here. We will incorporate those thoughts and ideas during the meeting, so please share now!)

See you right here on September 19th at 1pm PT!

TWEET STREAM DURING CHAT

Scroll to the bottom to begin

What conditions would set the stage for that vision to be reality?  And what could make Creating the Future’s existing communities for consultants all they can be?

That will be the topic of our discussion on Monday, July 29 at 9am PT / 12 noon ET.

This will be our second meeting about this topic. For background, read a summary of the last meeting here, where you will also find a link to that meeting (in video and MP3)

To participate in this discussion, watch for the video below (it will appear when the meeting begins) and tweet to the hashtag #CTFuture. We will be watching for your questions, ideas, experience, thoughts – and for you to simply join in the fun!

In the video meeting itself will be the volunteer facilitators for Creating the Future’s current consultant communities – the monthly #NPCons Twitter chat, and the Nonprofit Consultants Facebook Group. Also present will be the creator of the #NPMC (Nonprofit Marketing Community) chat, which was modeled after Creating the Future’s #NPCons chat.

The meeting will appear right here when the meeting starts.  (If it is time for the meeting and the video has not appeared yet, we may just be running a bit late.)  See you there!

Twitter stream from the conversation
(Scroll to the bottom to begin)

Those are the questions that opened Creating the Future’s first meeting of its Consultant Community R&D team.

The following are notes from that meeting, to help move the group forward (our next meeting in Monday, July 29th).  The group who gathered for this initial discussion were the facilitators of the #NPCons chat – Nancy Iannone, Kevin Monroe, Jane Garthson, Hildy Gottlieb and Dimitri Petropolis. Also present via the Twitterverse were Kent Schell and Lisa Humenik.

You can watch that meeting – or download and listen via MP3 – at this link.

Purpose
Before sharing what transpired at this meeting, let’s talk about the purpose for the meeting in the first place.

Creating the Future’s mission is to have workplaces operate from the core of assumptions that have led to human progress across the ages – the Pollyanna Principles.  To that end, a full 1/4 of our programming to accomplish that mission is about convening.

Given that consultants are often at the forefront of teaching workplaces how to “be,” bringing those consultants together is an important aspect for accomplishing our mission.

Creating the Future currently runs two forums where consultants gather and share their wisdom – the monthly #NPCons Twitter chat, and the Nonprofit Consultants Facebook Group.  Both those forums were developed with little strategy behind them, as often happens with programs that arise because there is demand for them. The strategy is typically, “Well, people need it and it fits our mission, so let’s do it!”

Now that we are looking to expand the group of facilitators for those two programs, it is a good time to step back and ask the strategic questions we would normally ask at the beginning of a new program.  What do we hope this program will accomplish? For whom? What circumstances / conditions will be conducive to that purpose being accomplished? And what can we do to create those conditions?

During this first meeting, we began where Creating the Future begins every discussion – at the goal. What do we want these convening places to make possible, and for whom?

The Highest Potential Outcome
If the first question in Creating the Future’s framework is always, “What will this thing make possible, and for whom?” the first step in answering that question is to determine the “for whom.”  If community benefit consultants come together in a safe environment, to share and discuss and explore together, who stands to benefit?  The group listed:

• Consultants (broadly – the group considered all the various sub-groups as well – current consultants, people who are considering becoming consultants, internal consultants within organizations, external consultants (independents AND those working in consulting organizations/firms).
• Creating the Future’s mission
• Facilitators of chats and groups (i.e. the places where the consultants are convening)
• Clients of those consultants
• Through those clients, the communities they serve
• Friends of people in the #NPCons chats, who see tweets and comment / RT
• Funders who support capacity building

So then, what would the ability to gather together in a safe environment make possible for each of those groups?

What would such a community make possible for Consultants?
• New perspectives
• New skills
• Support
• Resources – expanding the tool box
• Inspiration
• Trends
• Deep thinking and reflection
• Community and connectedness
• Practicing concise storytelling

• See that others have the same problems – “this is normal”
• Builds sub-communities
• Drives a new level of commitment
• Creates more resources for those consultants
• courage to try things they otherwise might not try
• challenges the comfortable way they are doing things
• Builds community beyond social media – introduces people to others in their own on-the-ground community
• validating concepts outside the norm
• Models ways of being and doing that demonstrate what is possible
• Provides tools – the actual tool of doing a twitter chat or a FB group – that they can apply with clients
• Creates a safe space with people who “speak my language”
• Format of questions and transfer of skills in asking questions
• People learning to listen and ask different questions they might not have done before
• For new consultants, it’s an easy / painless way to put a toe in to being in community with other consultants

What would such a community make possible for the Clients of those Consultants?
• Clients have a better consulting experience.
• Consultants are sharper
• Pushes their envelope
• better outcomes, which leads to the community being better (their own mission success)
• People who participate are much more aware of how they be with their clients, overall
• Changes how clients interact with each other
• mindfulness
• Map assets / making the implicit visible – mapping out the virtual context
• Pushes how clients think about community vs organization
• Clients do stuff online because consultants have experience with that to share
• Clients benefit from consulting that is dynamic and not formulaic
• Format of questions and transfer of skills in asking questions, from consultant to clients
• People learning to listen and ask different questions they might not have done before, which they then model to their clients

What would such a community make possible for the Facilitators of the Consultant Communities?
• Learning to format questions
• People learning to listen and ask different questions they might not have done before
• Learning / modeling what builds community
• Developing rituals, the power of rituals, traditions
• Learning how to bring out the wisdom in others

What would such a community make possible for Creating the Future’s mission?
• More arms on the starfish (alludes to the Starfish and the Spider – distributed leadership)
• Ideas, process, principles filter out into the practice of the consultants, who then bring what they discover into the world, and bring what they learn from that back to the community
• Creating the Future models its own values – less worry about being publicly authentic, when that’s simply how we be in community
• Capturing the stream of the NPCons chat adds to the knowledge bae
• Sharing more, being less proprietary
• The communities (both online communities) provide an easy place to invite people in – easy to join the group
• Lag time (both online community formats) allows people time to think
• Provides people the opportunity to get to know more about Creating the Future, and to choose to participate in our work to the extent they want with no pressure to do so
• Communities make it possible to move beyond dependency on Hildy and Dimitri – succession as resiliency of mission AND power of the group coming together because of each other and the community as a whole, and NOT because of any one person
• People participating from their brilliance

Pre-conditions for Success
If the lists above are a starting point for what communities of consultants – on the ground or online – could make possible, what conditions would need to be in place for those communities to accomplish that?  What would set the stage for these communities being all they can be?

The group divided that question into two arenas – the people part and the infrastructure part.  First, the people part:

What would people in those communities need to believe for that vision of success to be possible?
• That their contribution matters and is valuable (online it could be by an RT or a “like”)
• That being in community is a good use of their time – that they will learn, connect, be energized and inspired.
• (From Kent Schell, tweeting) Knowledge does not exist except in relationship – new knowledge is formed in dialogue
• That they are in a safe space – that they can trust the “room”

What then builds that safe space – that trust?
• The “spaces” would need to create expectations of how people will be with each other – the cultural norms
• Facilitators and structures and cultural norms model what is possible re: trust – and that once that spark is lit, the group then takes over and owns those norms, reinforcing them
• Needs that spark!
• Provocative discussions / questions from someone we trust
• The space must feel “social” – informal
• The facilitators come from the group – they were part of the group before being facilitators
• Facilitators with skills in listening – to find the power within the group, to see where the group is at and to be flexible
• Connecting conversations to each other
• Spirit of hospitality – feeling invited
• Specific to Twitter chat (or other time-specific events) Power of support roles – planning, engaging people between chats (inviting, promoting)
• Sense of humor!

What infrastructure sets the stage for that vision of success to be possible?
• Rituals (like the Friday Brag Basket in the FB group, or the order of the questions in the #NPCons chat).
• (Per Kent) Do rituals provide comfort that allows people to get energized / get the adrenaline going?
• Structures that encourage people to be the HUMANS they are vs. a salesperson
• Sharing a link vs shring who you are as a person in relation to that link
• Shared expectations (ground rules)

Reflections
To wrap up the meeting, the group reflected on what stood out for each of them.  (Kevin had to leave early).

Jane:
1) Kent’s comments that knowledge does not exist except in relationship, that it is created in dialogue
2) How our communities have evolved organically through the people who chose to take part

Nancy:
While the tools are virtual, this is about building a community of consultants, and what is possible for that

Dimitri:
The community is more in sync than it’s ever been

Lisa:
The adaptability of these concepts to both virtual and traditional communities is intriguing

Kent:
Great discussion. Your questions ask authentically for personal insight and experience from participants. Powerful.

Hildy:
1) Looking forward to asking the next sets of conditions questions, “What could make this community all it can be?”
2) Trust the process, trust the room – how hard it was to trust the process in the early days of the Twitter chat when it was SO quiet and only a few people were chatting. And that it evolved because we trusted the process
3) This all has to do with being decent humans and trusting that in each other

Our next meeting will be Monday, July 29 at 9am Pacific time / 12noon Eastern time (North America). We hope you will join us then!

Anyone involved in social change understands the back and forth between the desire for things to be simple and linear, and the reality that life on this planet is far too complex for that.

Perhaps no one has studied that ongoing back-and-forth more than evaluation guru Michael Quinn Patton – the subject of one of the most listened-to of our interviews with social change thought leaders.

We confess that we hesitated to share this interview in the “While You Commute” column of our e-newsletter, because there is so much good stuff in here, we worried you might never get to work as you stopped every few minutes to jot down your thoughts (or worse, that you wouldn’t stop – please, no jotting and driving!)

If you are looking for a checklist of “things to do to create impact,” this will not be the interview for you.

But if you are seeking deep thinking – and Michael has been thinking about this stuff for over 4 decades and described it in 5 books – you will want to listen to this one twice.

Michael urges us to think beyond checklists of things to do, to instead reach for what is possible in broad terms, and to then embrace complexity, staying open to learning. He suggests (and we very much agree) that replicating what successful projects do cannot hold a candle to the power of learning how successful change agents think.

Whether you are interested in the science and the art of evaluation, or you are curious how other consultants walk the talk of their values by holding themselves accountable for something more than getting the next gig – we hope this interview gets your own creative juices flowing.

But please, if you listen while driving, stop along the road if you’re going to take notes!

Listen to the Audio Interview:

or Download the MP3
(To download to your hard drive, right-click {or click and hold on a Mac} on the link above and select “Save Target As”.. or “Save Link as”… depending on your browser)